Cheating Trajectories Across Grades 6-12: Why Belonging and Engagement Matter

• In Event: Development of Academic Cheating from Kindergarten to High School

Abstract

Each year, we ask thousands of secondary school students to self-report the number of times in the past month that they have engaged in 12 different cheating behaviors. They can reply never; once; two to three times; or four or more times. In our sample, over 70% of students admit to cheating at least once in the past month. When we report our findings to schools, educators are often surprised by the high cheating levels. We are not surprised by these numbers because we have seen steady rates over many years in all kinds of schools.

This paper aims to map academic cheating trajectories across grades 6 to 12 and to examine the relationship between cheating behaviors and student engagement with learning and feelings of belonging in school. We hypothesize that cheating rates will rise steadily from grades 6 to 12, and that students who are more engaged with school and who feel higher rates of belonging will cheat less frequently.

We surveyed 29,378 high school students and 15,621 middle school students between 2021-22, with roughly half identifying as boy/man or girl/woman and 8% as transgender/non-binary/unsure. Students came from 29 public high schools and 17 public middle schools, with free and reduced lunch rates ranging from less than 5% to 55%. Approximately 28% identified as white, 24% Asian or Asian American, 17% Latinx, 11% South Asian or Indian, 9% multi-ethnic, 4% African American, and 7% other/decline. We used established scales to measure cheating behavior (McCabe, 1999), engagement (adapted from Marks, 2000), and belonging (adapted from Goodenow, 1993).

We found that mean frequency cheating across all behaviors is between never and once (see Figure 1), that 10-12 graders cheated significantly more than other grades, that 8th and 9th graders cheated more frequently than 6th and 7th graders; and 7th graders cheated more frequently than 6th graders.

Next, we explored differences in cheating by engagement types. Looking at mean differences in cheating by engagement types, we find that students who report the lowest level of engagement in school (disengaged) are cheating significantly more frequently than all other engagement profiles. In addition, students reporting high behavioral engagement but low affective and cognitive engagement (doing school profile), are also cheating significantly more frequently than those reporting higher affective and cognitive engagement. Similarly, Analysis of Variance results demonstrate that the less students feel a sense of belonging in school, the more frequently they report cheating.

Using General Linear Modeling, we explored the interaction effects of belonging and engagement on the frequency of cheating. As seen in Figure 2, there are main effects of belonging and engagement on cheating frequency but no interaction effects. Students who have high affective and cognitive engagement cheat significantly less frequently than all other students, and the same is true for students who have a higher sense of school belonging. Findings suggest that practitioners may want to focus on increasing engagement and/or belonging strategies in classrooms in order to decrease cheating frequency.

Authors

• Sarah Becket Miles, Stanford University
  Presenting Author

• Denise Clark Pope, Stanford University

• Samantha Selby, Stanford University